LIFE - ALBUM REVIEW

LIFE - North East Coastal Town (The Liquid 

Label)

Release Date: Out Now

Immense Hull outfit LIFE are back in town ready to reflect the grimness of life in the UK right now and they don't pull any punches. 'North East Coastal Town' opens with 'Friends Without Names', a brooding and then searing near six minute beast of a song that builds into a quivering, drooling frenzy before collapsing on the floor - it's a bold start. There's a similarly uncomfortable and nightmarish energy to 'Big Moon Lake' which then settles in to a fast paced romp with its roots in punk but an art-rock edge like Franz Ferdinand doing an album of Undertones covers. 

'Incomplete' clatters along with the twitchy energy of Blur in the early days but the swagger deliver of the Fall before 'Almost Home' goes to a slightly darker and more angular place but with a devilish glint in the eye. There's a quiet menace mixed with defeatism on 'Duck Egg Blue' that feels like the slow creep of death brought on by life in suburbia with tones of the National or the B of the Bang. Then the absolute banger of 'The Shipping Forecast' (yes, really) roars in to life with IDLES meets Fontaines D.C. energy and I'm here for that all day long. 

The sinister tone and breakneck speed of 'Poison' is bone rattlingly joyous while 'Self Portrait' is the sound of a bunch mates making as much noise as possible as a catharsis for the world imploding around them on the outside of a rehearsal room. 'The Drug' is the sexiest track on this collection due, largely, to the combination of sleazy bass playing and a vocal delivery that switches between assured crooning and whispered promises or threats. 

Penultimate track 'Our Love Is Growing' is a punk love song with a swaying and staggering gait that is as charming as it is unsettling. The album closes out on 'All You Are' which lurches and lumbers along like the last man in the pub singing for anyone who wants to listen and quite a few of those who don't. There is so much to explore on this album and so many layers to uncover that it really is a gift that keeps on giving but I would suggest you don't put it on repeat too often because the sheer heft of it might just weigh too heavily upon you. 

More information: https://www.facebook.com/lifebanduk

Live Dates: 

19^th Aug – Record Junkee, Sheffield (7pm)
22^nd Aug – The Vinyl Whistle, Headingley (1pm) / Jumbo, Leeds (3.30pm) / Crash, Leeds (6pm
23^rd Aug – Rough Trade Bristol
24^th Aug – Parade Vibes, Watford (1pm) / Rough Trade East, London (7pm)
25^th Aug – Pie & Vinyl, Southsea (1pm) / Resident, Brighton (6pm)

3^rd Sept – Album launch party at The Social, Hull
3^rd Oct – The Cluny, Newcastle
4^th Oct – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
5^th Oct – Mash House, Edinburgh
6^th Oct – The Deaf Institute, Manchester
7^th Oct – Bootleg Social, Blackpool
8^th Oct – Bodega, Nottingham
10^th Oct – The Fleece, Bristol
11^th Oct - Patterns, Brighton
12^th Oct – Scala, London
14^th Oct – Joiners, Southampton

EU Tour:

27^th Sept – Confort Modern, Poitiers
28^th Sept – Rock School Barbey, Bordeaux
29^th Sept – Astrolabe, Orleans
30^th Sept – Point Ephemere, Paris
17^th Oct – Blueshell, Cologne
18^th Oct – Molotow Club, Hamburg
20^th Oct – Café V Lese, Prague
21^st Oct – Rocking Chair, Switzerland
22^nd Oct – Arci Bellezza, Milan
23^rd Oct – Freakout, Bologna
25^th Oct – Hole 44, Berlin
26^th Oct – Merelyn, Nigmegen
27^th Oct – Rotown, Rotterdam
28^th Oct – ACU, Utrecht
29^th Oct – London Calling Festival, Amsterdam